1-2 SEP 2006 - OP: The Gothic Line WWII Event

[hellmutt]

Pre-registration link: http://www.battlesim.com/battlesim/f...pic.php?t=5322

BACKGROUND:



Italian Campaign - Sept 1944

The Gothic Line, also known as Linea Gotica, formed Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's last line of defence along the summits of the Apennines during the fighting retreat of Nazi Germany's forces from Italy in the final stages of World War II. The Gothic Line developed as a result of one of the Allies' missteps, and a tactic mastery of the Axis powers.

After the nearly concurrent breakthroughs at Cassino and Anzio in spring 1944, the 11 nations representing the Allies in Italy finally had a chance to trap the Germans in a pincer movement and to realize some of Churchill's strategic goals for the long, costly campaign against the Axis "underbelly". This would have required U.S. 5th Army General Mark Clark to commit most of his Anzio forces to the drive east from Cisterna, and to execute the envelopment evisioned in the original planning for the Anzio landing (i.e., flank the German 10th Army, and sever its northbound line of retreat from Cassino). Instead, fearing that the British Eighth Army might beat him to Rome, Clark diverted a large part of his Anzio force in that direction in an attempt to ensure that he and the 5th Army would have the honor of liberating the Eternal City.

As a result, most of Kesselring's forces slipped the noose and fell back to the Arno River, where they built a 16 km-deep belt of fortifications extending from south of La Spezia (on the west coast) to the Foglia Valley, through the natural defensive wall of the Apennines mountains, to the Adriatic Sea between Pesaro and Ravenna, on the east coast. The emplacements included numerous concrete-reinforced gun pits and trenches, and 2,376 machine-gun nests with interlocking fire.

The Battle of Gemmano (September 1944), nicknamed by some historians as the "Cassino of the Adriatic", took place along the Gothic line; a second major battle occurred between August 25, 1944-September 30 at Rimini.

Hitler had concerns about the state of preparation of the Gothic Line. He feared the Allies would use amphibious landings to out-flank its defenses. To downgrade the importance of the Gothic Line in the eyes of both friend and foe, Hitler ordered the name, with its historic connotations, changed. He reasoned that if the Allies managed to break through they would seize upon the more pretentious name as ground for magnifying their victory claims. Kesselring renamed it the "Green Line".

The Allies finally broke through the Gothic line in the spring of 1945, thanks to fresh reinforcements from India, France, the United States and Poland; British landings in Greece, and Yugoslav partisan activity.

[hellmutt]

Images from previous WWII Events:

Carentan - April 2006











Battle of the Bulge - Dec 2005

[Krieg]

Hmm!

THanks for the heads up, but ppl can't take their guns over to the US.
So I wonder how many of us will go from here: Canuckistan

[hellmutt]

We rent AEGS and have been contacted by several groups in Canada about coming to our events and renting guns, that's why were are posting here. Here is our rental list:

http://www.battlesim.com/battlesim/f...pic.php?t=4302

[Krieg]

Thanks for heads up.